Abstract:

The University of the Basque Country started using Moodle in 2004 as a Learning Management System (LMS) to support classroom teaching. Immediately, a Faculty Training Program was designed and offered, based in two consecutive courses:

• Moodle Basics: Designed to introduce new users to the basic use of Moodle: understanding typical layout and navigation of a Moodle site and course, learning basic vocabulary, working with the Moodle editor, managing contents and files,…

• How to make Moodle an engaging learning tool for your learners: The course was focused on guiding teachers to use Moodle with the didactical approach for which it was designed, e.g. social constructionist pedagogy, rather than putting resource repositories and/or online exercises. We focused on the best practices in Moodle to connect with students in a personal way that addresses their own learning needs, and moderating discussions and activities in a way that collectively leads students towards the learning goals of the class.

About 1300 teachers participated in the training program. Some faculty members took the entire program (both courses), some took only the basic course and other took only the course with the didactic approach (didactical course hereinafter).

The aim of this work is to determine whether the training program helped them improve their teaching by the use of Moodle, and to determine the effectiveness of the training program, especially between those who took the entire program and those who took only the “didactic course”. The study was conducted through a questionnaire, which was answered by 353 faculty members (22%) out of the 1603 that were using Moodle.

The results showed that the use of the learning platform was mainly oriented to present materials (RESOURCES), trough by all types of files and links to websites; followed by COMMUNICATION tools (news, discussion and question forums), and ASSESMENT tools such as, questionnaires and assignments whereby student can submit any digital content. COLLABORATIVE tools (such us wikis, glossaries…) were hardly used.

When comparing the answers of faculty member who took the “basic course” versus those who took the “didactical course”, the use of collaborative glossaries, wikis and data bases increased up to 109%, 53% and 112% respectively; the use of tools for assessment, such us questionnaires and subjective queries also increased up to 92 and 46%, respectively.

However, when comparing the answers of the faculty members that attended both courses (basic and didactic) to those who attended only the didactic course, the use of tools for the assessment and collaborative learning was higher among the latter. The use of tools to present materials and to communicate was quite similar. Then, unlike what we believed, training faculty members only attending to the courses for the didactic use of Moodle, was more effective in the use of collaborative learning strategies than training them on two steps (basics + didactic use). Then, the most effective training strategy would be a course focused in a strong didactical use of the software, showing examples of good practices and making an analysis and reflection of the convenient use of each tool within the field of knowledge of each faculty.

Keywords:

Trainning staff, moodle, e-learning, educating the educators.